The capacity for the new building is just slightly larger than the current population of female prisoners.

State prison officials said the numbers can be confusing because not all prisoners currently being housed in the Goffstown prison will move to the new Concord building. But some said the prison population shouldn't be that big to begin with because there are smarter options.

The new prison is designed to hold 224 inmates. There are currently 220 women incarcerated in New Hampshire.

"Some of them are at our Shea Farm halfway house, and when the new women's prison opens, they will all not be moved back to the new women's prison," said Jeff Lyons, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. "We also have some women who are receiving mental health treatment in our secure psychiatric unit."

Others are serving their sentences outside of New Hampshire.

"However, the population is trending upward for about a year, and this is something that we do have some concerns about," Lyons said.

Officials said the increase in the prison population is due largely to women who have committed their first crimes, rather than repeat offenders.

"Some of them are drug-related crimes," Lyons said. "They are crimes that they may have been a co-conspirator or had gone along with a spouse or a boyfriend or something to commit a crime."

Regardless of whether the women are new to life behind bars, prisoner advocates said what they call a "lock 'em up" philosophy is hurting New Hampshire families.

"We should be treating women, treating them in the least restrictive environment so they can be with their children, not break that bond up," said Chris Dornin of Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform. "It's tough on the kids to lose their mother. We can do a better job than this."

As far as running out of room in the newly built prison, officials said they're working toward reducing the prison population overall by focusing on more community-based treatment for many nonviolent offenders.

"Very often, the types of crimes relate to substance-abuse issues, trying to support a habit or committing a crime relating to substance-abuse issues," Lyons said. "So if they can get that kind of treatment on the outside, then there would be less of a chance they'd come to prison."

Officials plan to close the Goffstown prison when the new $38 million women's prison is completed in the fall of 2016.